The Importance Of Fast Food In Schools

Schools looking for financial support have come to the realization that they can not rely on government funding and have instead turned to corporations. From sports teams and venues having brand name corporate sponsors to schools having vending machines or lunch contract deals, schools are selling themselves to the highest bidder. Students have seemingly become nothing more than a major marketing demographic, and schools have become prime real estate locations. Companies associate their product with success and happiness in the minds of students and parents by using reward systems, incentives for good grades, and offering coupons and other promotions constantly. The main perpetrator of exploiting schools is the fast food industry.
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People conduct research on the effect fast food has on kids and how unhealthy it is, yet these people often fail to recognize that the other choices schools have are no better or even worse. Advocates for healthier school lunches target fast food because of its established stigma yet they ignore the facade put on by other food distributors. When schools finally do offer a healthy lunch no one will eat it because a child will decide what good food is purely by taste. A child who knows there are better tasting options will not voluntarily choose to eat healthily. At the very least, students enjoy the taste of fast food while other lunch options are ignored and wasted. One can argue why fast food should not be allowed in schools as much as they want but it seems this is the only option that does not end with kids going hungry. Along with this, schools can not financially sustain themselves while providing a healthy lunch so the dilemma becomes trying to promote schools and healthy living when it seems they both can not realistically coincide with each …show more content…
Although the numbers vary from study to study, about 30 percent of schools nationwide sell fast food, with even more having some connection. When it comes to schools, fast food is around every corner. Sometimes this is quite literal, many schools have a fast food establishment within half of a mile from campus. Already convinced that a fast food restaurant is the best place to get good food, students leaving school and seeing countless fast food locations is like whole schools of fish swimming into large nets. Both are helpless and do not know any better thus they are caught blindly placing themselves in a